President
Obama told
the United Nations General Assembly on September 24 that “…the
Supreme Leader [of Iran] has issued a fatwa against the development of
nuclear weapons, and President Rouhani has just recently reiterated that
the Islamic Republic will never develop a nuclear weapon.” A fatwa
is supposed to be an authoritative religious edict, and sounds like a
guarantee that the Iran regime has ruled out nuclear weapons.

But
the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) says,
“In fact, such a fatwa was never issued by Supreme Leader Khamenei
and does not exist; neither the Iranian regime nor anybody else can present
it.” MEMRI Founder and President Yigal Carmon told
FoxNews.com, “There is no such fatwa. It is a lie from the Iranians,
a deception, and it is tragic that President Obama has endorsed it.”

If MEMRI’s
report is true, then the President of the United States has accepted a
form of disinformation designed to make the Iranian regime look good,
perhaps in order to make a deal with that regime. What do we know about
this fatwa?

We do
know that some in the U.S. media, including such figures as Fareed Zakaria
of CNN, have accepted it as fact.

In addition
to his speech to the U.N., Obama made a reference to the fatwa in remarks
at the White House. “Iran’s supreme leader has issued a fatwa
against the development of nuclear weapons. President Rouhani has indicated
that Iran will never develop nuclear weapons,” Obama said. He made
this claim after declaring, “I do believe that there is a basis
for a resolution” of the nuclear weapons issue.

The
problem for Obama and his administration is that there is no written and
verifiable record of this fatwa, and what it actually says or does not
say. Instead, the supposed “fatwa” is based completely on
statements attributed to questionable Iranian sourcesthat may or may not
have access to this mysterious document.

As such,
Obama’s claim appears to be part of the “propaganda, hype
and disinformation” from the regime that former Ambassador John
Bolton refers to in his
Monday column in The Wall Street Journal.

It is
shocking that, with the future of the Middle East at stake, Obama would
accept and promote a claim that is highly questionable, and base his policy
of engagement with Iran on what may be a blatant lie.

During
the Reagan years, there was a concerted effort to expose and challenge
Soviet disinformation and propaganda activities, such as the claim that
AIDS originated in a Pentagon laboratory. Under Obama, it seems that questionable
claims made by foreign regimes are accepted, rather than rebuffed, and
made into the basis of nuclear weapons policy. In this case, as
we documented, the alleged source of the fatwa, Iran’s Supreme
religious leader, Ali Khamenei, is likely a Russian agent trained by the
old Soviet KGB. He may know a lot about how to conduct disinformation
and propaganda activities against the West.

Michael
Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute says,
“Perhaps it’s time for a bit less trust and a bit more verify.
While Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s nuclear fatwa has been
the stuff of diplomatic gossip for years, no one citing it has ever actually
seen it. Khamenei lists all of his fatwas on his webpage, but the nuclear
fatwa isn’t among them.”

He adds,
“Every single journalist who cites the fatwa should demand to see
it.”

But
some of these journalists, led by Fareed Zakariaof CNN, have failed to
verify and instead only seem to “trust” our adversaries.

Joel
B. Pollack of Breitbart has dug
into this, providing evidence that he says proves the “fatwa”
is a hoax. He argues, “…the evidence on which President Obama
is basing his decision to trust the Iranian regime is far weaker than
the evidence on which George W. Bush based his decision not to trust Iraq’s
Saddam Hussein.”

Here’s
what others have reported on this subject:

•
The report, “Nuclear Fatwa: Religion and Politics in Iran’s
Proliferation Strategy,” by Michael Eisenstadt and Mehdi Khalaji,
claims
that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei “issued an oral fatwa forbidding
the production and use of WMD [weapons of mass destruction] in any form”
in October 2003, but that it could be easily modified or could be a form
of deception on the part of the regime.

•
Ali M. Ansari of the University of St. Andrews reports
there can be little doubt “that at present such a fatwa—in
any meaningful form—does not appear to exist. The concept of an
‘oral fatwa,’ in the context of Iran’s nuclear program,
is meaningless…”

•
Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi writes
at the PBS Frontline site that “(1) There is doubt over whether
such a fatwa even exists, and, (2) Even if such a fatwa does exist, it
does not mean that it couldn’t be changed as and when deemed necessary
by the Islamic Republic’s political leadership.”

•
Professor Juan Cole reports
that the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) has referred to such a fatwa
in a statement issued to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Based
on this news account and reaction to it, Cole concludes the fatwa not
only was issued but is “widely acknowledged by high officials of
the Islamic Republic,” is “considered by them to be binding
law,” and “has been reaffirmed numerous times.” Still,
he did not produce the actual ruling, only a statement by the regime.

•
Wikipedia has an
entry on an Iranian fatwa “against production, stockpiling and
use of nuclear weapons,” but merely refers to the Iranian statement
released to the IAEA cited previously. The “full
text of the statement,” which was read by Iranian nuclear negotiator
Sirus Naseri, says, “The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the fatwa that the production, stockpiling,
and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic
Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons.” However, the
actual document was not produced for inspection.

•
Mike Shuster of National Public Radio said,
“As far as anyone knows, the fatwa was never written down.”

Of special
interest is the fact that Fareed Zakaria, like Obama, also accepts the
propaganda.

Dore
Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, notes
that Zakaria wrote a
cover story for Newsweek on May 22, 2009, insisting that “the
country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa
in 2004 describing the use of nuclear weapons as immoral.” Zakaria
also wrote an article
in The Washington Post uncritically quoting Khamenei as saying, that “the
Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers
the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin.” The title of this
piece was, “The shape of a deal with Iran.”

In his
2009 book, The
Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West, Gold notes
that Zakaria is “one of the most respected voices on trends in U.S.
foreign policy,” but that his approach flies in the face of the
evidence about uranium enrichment activities and nuclear warhead design
in Iran substantiated by the IAEA itself.

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The
author of The
Post-American World, Zakaria seems eager to usher in a New World
Order in which dangerous regimes such as Iran develop nuclear weapons
capabilities. Obama was once photographed by The New York Times carrying
the book.

Indeed,
Zakaria says
the West can live with a nuclear Iran. He says, “…even if
one day Tehran manages to build a few crude bombs, a policy of robust
containment and deterrence is better to contemplate than a preemptive
war.”

So even
if the Iranians are lying about their fatwa, according to Zakaria, it
apparently doesn’t matter. He is prepared to accept Iranian nuclear
weapons no matter what.

If MEMRI’s report is true, then the President of the United States
has accepted a form of disinformation designed to make the Iranian regime
look good, perhaps in order to make a deal with that regime. What do we
know about this fatwa?